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Quick ski tuning for dummies

It is definitely no rocket science and the fact that I am relatively young in the skiing business tells you a lot that if I can accomplish keeping my skis smooth and running you can too! Of course, there are way more advanced techniques that the pros use, but this is just a quick and dirty protocol that you can simply do yourself and makes things cheaper, in the long run, that is. The first time needs some investment in equipment, but then you are as good as set for a longer happier lifetime of your skis and in the end a happier you. So here we go!

To make you motivated even more; this is basically what you can expect. A picture of my skis in which one is done with tuning (L) and the other is desperately in need of a drop of wax (R).

Left after tuning, right before.

Step 1: Before you start waxing and cutting it is important to remove some rusty patches, old hardening and pre-sharpen the base and edges of your ski. This you can do with a so-called Alu-Oxydstone 40. The Alu-Oxydstein 40 can be inserted into the edge sharpener.

Step 2: After removing dirty spots, you can start with cutting the base and edges. Different skis have different degrees to cut them. Look up the details of your skis before you start tuning them! For my skis, the base was done with 0.5° and the edges with 88°. You have all kind of different sharpeners, from advanced machines with fine tuning in a variety of degrees (more expensive) or the simple versions with only a few options (cheaper, however, works just as fine). I used the edge sharpener Edger 2X2 – For sharpening the side edge at an angle of 88 ° and 87 °, and for the facing edge at an angle of 0.5 ° and 1.0 °. As basically with all steps, always work from front end to back end of your skis (makes sense if you think of how the skis move on the snow).

Cutting 88°

Step 3: After tuning the base and edges, now the waxing part starts. Preheat your wax iron, the temperature has to be just hot enough to melt the wax (not too hot, as it can damage the base of your ski). Preheat your wax iron, I use a T77, 230V – 1000W. To check if your iron is hot enough, take your wax block and hold it against the iron. If it melts a bit, then it is just right. I use universal F4 with fluorine, 60g hot wax. Hold the wax against your hot iron and drip the melted wax over your ski base; be generous with the wax! After covering your base in wax drips you glide your hot iron over the wax on your base to smoothen it out.

Hot wax with ironSmoothen out hot wax

Step 4: Now leave the wax rest for approximately 30 minutes. After that you scrape off the wax with a wax blade, 3 mm will do. This has to be done properly because you don’t want to have a thick wax layer on your ski, just a thin layer that is deep in the base is all you need to fly over the snow.

Scrape of wax

Step 5: After you are done with scraping most of the wax off, you start with brushing, and with brushing, I mean brushing a lot! I have different brushes and the one I used here is a combination brush with nylon bristles and felt side (nylon bristles for brushing after waxing and the felt side for polishing).

Brush, brush, brush!Finishing touchBeforeAfter 🙂

So that is basically it, as I said, no rocket science and you are ready to enjoy your skis. If you did it properly they will look like new again.